Shenton Sng
Yuelin YANG
Nanyang Technological University
Ron Fry
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Previous technology to convert waste to energy (WTE) was largely based on incineration of the waste. However, the incineration process has a few challenging issues: (i) gasified waste produces contaminants that are harmful to the environment, (ii) tar produced as a by-product deactivates catalysts and fouls/plug process equipment, (iii) incinerators produce energy inefficiently since incinerators make most of their money from waste disposal fees instead of from power generation and (iv) incinerators need to be of large scale. Synova has the technology to remove tar and gaseous contaminants (OLGA®).
The MILENA-OLGA technology is the core of Synova’s business. It can use heterogeneous (i.e., multiple and not just say biomass) feedstock to produce energy as well as natural gas and feedstock for chemicals. This technology is cleaner, more efficient and can be used in smaller scale than incinerators, which is currently the most common waste to energy technology. By using waste as feedstock, it will reduce plastics in the ocean and land required for landfills.
Bram van der Drift, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Synova was part of the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) who was responsible for the development of MILENA® and OLGA® technologies back around 2002 (i.e., over 15 years ago). He was the representative of the Dutch government to the International Energy Agency (IEA) task force on biomass gasification. ECN first tried to commercialize the technology by collaborating with a 128-year-old company called Royal Dahlman, a world leader in process filtration and process scrubbers for the petrochemical industry. Dahlman had good engineers but devoted insufficient capital. Later, Synova bought 100% of Dahlman’s renewable energy subsidiary, DRT, which had the licenses to the OGLA and MILENA technologies which led to Synova collaborating with ECN. Together with Giffen Ott, Cofounder & CEO of Synova, they are commercialising the technology which is jointly owned by a joint venture owned 50-50 by ECN and DRT.
Giffen Ott, Co-founder & CEO, Synova described the challenge and vision this way, "70% of plastics found in the ocean are from Asia. We must now focus on what we make (energy, chemicals) and not what we destroy (incinerate). It is a great opportunity to make energy out of plastics after 30 years of making plastics from energy. Synova's efforts join those from many quarters of the world to try to restore our planet's resources so that future generations may also enjoy Earth as we knew it."
Given the growing amount of municipal solid waste, the potential market size is estimated by Synova to be US$1 trillion.
If this commercialization is successful, it will contribute towards a cleaner environment (air, water and land), bringing clean energy to communities that are geographically isolated from energy production or isolated from electricity power grids. In addition to communities, there may be corporate end users who can recycle their waste for their own energy (i.e., closed loop system).
There are currently no units in operation yet. There is a larger unit planned for Thailand that is pending government approvals. Synova will also be engaging academics and students in universities by piloting a small unit at a university in Thailand.
*Editor's Note: For more detail about Synova, please see this Aug. 2, 2018 Washington Post opinion piece called: We’re drowning in trash. These Dutch scientists have a solution."
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Giffen Ott, Co-founder & CEO
Synova has the technology to remove tar and gaseous contaminants (OLGA®). Tars are then reused to power the gasifier and generate power via smaller 2 MW modularized (into container sized) units which can be fabricated in quantity (and thus more cheaply), more easily transported and installed as an SMM (Small Modular MILENIA®). The cleaner gas produced will then support the production of clean energy as well as for other uses such as natural gas and feedstock for chemicals.